Your comment is wrong on so many levels. I ride motorcycles in Arizona, and many of my friends often carry, some on their hip, some concealed. I also carry from time to time. In the many years of riding I've done, NO ONE has ever pulled his sidearm or threatened anyone.
Ah. So in fact, by observation, you've never been in a situation where having a gun would have been useful in resolving it, yet you maintain a fantasy that someday this situation will arise and (a) You will happen to be carrying on that day (b) You will happen to point your gun at someone less likely to shoot you then you them (c) It won't be a situation better resolved by compromise i.e giving a guy you wallet with 20 bucks in it.
You have the objective reasoning of a 10 year old and live in a fantasy world. Grow up.
Why do we carry a gun?? Not because the world is dangerous, but because individuals are.
YOU are the danger. You appear to have little or no critical reasoning facility, you jump at shadows.To make matters worse, you are armed. Let's say I walked in and found you with gun out , pointing at another person. I would assume that YOU were the danger. Are you ready to draw your gun and shoot someone? Then you pose a danger to civil society and the correct functioning of that society.
Since it doesn't matter whether the gun is stolen from the body of the hapless and under prepared gun owner or stolen form the house of the hapless and under prepared gun owner general statistics about gun theft don't need to make that distinction - the figure is 1.4 million guns over 5 years: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fshbopc0510pr.cfm.
For one thing, if I ever have to use a gun quickly, it's in a circumstance where (God forbid) my life or the life of someone else is at risk. There is no room for error in that situation.
If you are in a situation where you are choosing between killing another person or being killed yourself then there is a high probability that you have already failed because you lack the situational awareness to not get into that circumstance in the first place. Killing another person isn't a success scenario.
I cannot conceive of a circumstance where I would be intimidated by the abundant presence of guns, while in the absence of belligerent people.
The presence of guns generally signals belligerence, except in very narrowly defined circumstances - e.g. at a shooting range, in a police station or military training facility.
As a general rule - if you are in a country with generally free emigration laws and people make a habit of carrying guns, then something is terribly amiss and you need to get out of there. Two possibilities:
1. The people carrying guns have drastically overestimated the danger, in which case, you need to move away - people with bad judgement and no ability to accurately assess personal risk pose a danger to those around them.
2. The people have accurately assessed the danger and so you are in danger as well, from whatever threat they are facing. You have no good basis for staying in such a place, unless you are a war correspondent or in the military. The sensible thing to do is to leave.
The presence of belligerent people on the other hand, may intimidate me without the presence of guns.
Logic error. Presumably, sufficient numbers of unfriendly people will intimidate you regardless - what you fail to mention is that if you walk into a facility where there are typically many guns - a nest of taliban fighters, a cartel stronghold and the like, then you are in objective danger anyway.
It's clear to me that guns are not what make a place dangerous.
The presence of guns indicate danger and the presence of guns will cause any conflict to escalate. The real world isn't like hollywood depictions of the American West.
Ah - so you have a model that shows that the earths climate will remain amenable to human life, causing neither hardship nor any form of mass migration?
And indeed, that current levels of biodiversity will be maintained - that global warming will not result in the loss of bio-diversity?
You have a model that discounts the 20% hit to global GDP evident in other published works?
Whereabouts might we find your model - I assume it's been published?
Oddly no. Ever since it was confirmed that the climate behaves precisely as outlined by the fabled hockey stick, denialists whave been remarkably quiet about it
Why is that? You would think that reputation-wise, they would be better off to admit their mistake.
I wouldn't trust a climatologist to do anything other than waste money writing papers about how much humans suck.
Do you think that climatologists have a guy whose job it is to convince you to trust them? If so, you are delusional.
When you read stories about "elite" climatologists making statements along the lines of universities shouldn't be giving out degrees related to climate studies to anyone who does not already agree that global warming is happening, is bad and is caused by humans,
Well I for one don't think universities should be handing out science degrees to people to stupid too read and understand a graph. Drooling morons and people who live in denial about facts in order to protect an idealogical position don't actually qualify for a degree based on intelligence and the acceptance of objective measures.
Is there a reason we need more people to have these degrees? Then encourage them to take the degree for those reasons. It's not as if the science we already need to do and the engineering we already need to do is not a challenge.
The moon landing back in the 1960's but a large boom into these careers. Although a small portion of them will be working on the space missions. The interest in these things as a kid will make them far more interested in the topics.
And after the boom came a bust. One of the big negatives of the apollo mythos is the intertwining of space exploration with sending bags of meat into space. The role of the bags of meat, is, as you say, to give the venture a human face - it's soap opera and (accesible) human drama.
But maybe the science is worth doing for it's own sake. Maybe the BIG achievements of NASA - Cassini, Voyager, the hugely successful Mars rovers - maybe these are the things we should celebrate, because these are science for the sake of science. If we are not getting kids excited about actual science then we are doing it wrong. Science is exciting.
But to figure out how to get people to survive and thrive on the Moon and Mars (extremely harsh conditions, and little energy sources) will create technology that we can use here on earth. Hey that solar panel on the moon can keep a small city running with a half a month of darkness, means on earth we could at least get it to run half a small city. Plus it will need to be small and light to get there. Extracting Drinking water out of the brimy pools on mars, would help us get drinking water out of our oceans and deserts.
We already know why we need those technologies. And we already know how to live sustainably on earth. If we are not motivated by the needs of 7 billion people and all their descendants, if we are not motivated by the need to preserve the biodiversity of the earth, then the needs of 7 people in a tin can will not motivate us. Solar panels can already power a small city on earth - we just don't want to reach into our pockets and build. We already know how to extract drinkable water from non-potable sources - we just don't care enough about the people without water to do anything about their needs.
Government is a means by which we choose to give up certain individual rights for the common good and for practical administration. And later, if we want or need them back, we take them back again. This is the universally accepted definition of democracy.
1. Did we choose to have this system in place?
2. What role in the common good and practical administration does it serve? Please be specific.
There is no need to be afraid of these people. Freedom hearted people have faced down much worse enemies than these. The only real opposition to overcome is the quislings who side with the big bully hoping to avoid getting hurt or inconvenienced. But chances are, if you've been to primary (elementary) school, you've been in this position before. You know the drill. Stand up to the bully, face him down together.
Burn it in the only way you can. Write letters, protest at every opportunity, and in every forum.
Be polite if you can, but recognise that social graces have their place, and if need be, you might need to be rude. Don't let quislings tell you "it's for the safety/the family/the children" without confronting them. Don't let quislings tell you "it's the fault of KODOS" they are just trying to make this a different discussion they can control.
We've all felt helpless for far too long. I say "we" I'm not an american, but every western country has seen this creeping up on them. I'm not stupid enough to imagine that the NSA doesn't keep data on me if that serves some commercial or political advantage for some client. So we stand with you. You aren't helpless. The pen is still mightier than the sword.
Which when applied to the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere means that a doubling of the natural concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere should lead to about 3-4 degrees rise in temperature.
Define most as a percentage of the total radiation recieved. Do the same thing for "much smaller percentage", "very much light" "almost all" and "very little". Cite the paper you a retrieving these observations from.
This is physics 101, something you can learn in a second semester physics class, but no one here actually cares much about physics or knows much about it anyways so it's not worth my time. You just like to throw the word around whilst having no clue what it means or what physics is with a complete unwillingness to actually discuss the physics.
So you accept a rather enormous leap in temperature (i.e 1.3K for doubling) but not the additional increase from positive feedback?
1. Which positive feedbacks are being overstated, and by what amount? What observations back your assertion that these are overstated - cite the paper in which these observations were published.
2. Which negative feedbacks are being ignored? Describe these negative feedbacks in detail and by reference to observations citing their true level of influence on the troposphere. Reference the paper in which your observations were published.
The physics doesn't really support this assertion.
It doesn't? Let's look at the numbers.
Naturally existing CO2 levels block out most of the infrared that would otherwise escape the atmosphere and any additionally added CO2 would only block out a much smaller percentage per each additional unit of CO2. It's like shining a light at two parallel walls, the second wall doesn't block very much light because the first wall blocks almost all of it. Likewise, naturally existing CO2 blocks almost all of the radiation that CO2 blocks and so what's left to exist the earth is very little.
Define most as a percentage of the total radiation recieved. Do the same thing for "much smaller percentage", "very much light" "almost all" and "very little". Cite the paper you a retrieving these observations from.
This is part of the reason why people are against global warming - when people mention reasons why they don't believe it, or ask real questions about it seeking clearer understanding, all we get is attacked, demeaned and insulted.
Did we hurt your feelings? That's a shame.
One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, but apparently in the case of global warming, this doesn't apply because its easier to just insult those who dont clearly understand or would like details.
Denialists aren't claiming to not understand the details. That's a stupid thing to say anyway - the basics of the science, (greenhouse gas theory, feedback mechanisms) are easy enough for a child to understand and those details can be found on wikipedia, which a child can navigate. Nobody has the job of bringing you up to speed. No, that is not what Monkton, Watts, Pielke and other high priests of denialism are saying. They say they have a better theory - a theory that can better explain what happened to the heat that should be in the troposphere, owing to the increased concentration of CO2 and other GHGs, whilst simultaneously explaining the coincident heat we see now is actually from another cause, and what that cause is.
They just can't tell us what this better theory actually says - I couldn't tell you why - selective mutism? Legal issues?
I know they have this theory because they say the science is wrong. The only way a sensible, truthful person could make that claim would be if they had a better theory. All that remains is for the proponents of that better theory to describe it to us.
Interesting. So did they travel back in time to falsify the foundations of GHG theory, which were established 150 years ago?
And how are they falisfying the results of those experiments every time they are repeated, given that these days, the theory can be confirmed by someone with the equipment found in a high school? That must take some mighty sophisticated tech. Fantastic surveillance equipment with some kind of inbuilt pre-cognition? Or are they time travelling back to the scene of each experiment to cook the results and 'heal the wound' as they say?
Which makes me wonder, given the pathetic kind of money that these climate scientists make in their day jobs, why don't they use the time machine directly to make the big bucks? See that? I'm smarter then all them dumb scientists! They didn't think of that one!
Because all actions are equally trivial for a deity and they are the root cause of all actions there is no distinction between action and inaction.
Who says that that all actions are equally trivial to a deity?
A benevolent deity has virtually no choice in their actions because they can only pick from the set of maximally good actions (because the only way to make benevolence make sense in this context is as I suggested before making benevolence a property of the deities nature, and any violation of this nature is a grave indiscretion).
Once again, experience belies this. I can be generous without being obliged to be equally generous to everybody. If I'm willing to ascribe this property to myself in my context of limited freedom, why would a deity, with no apparent obligations, be obliged to step in and correct our every mistake?
And this still doesn't address the issue of what is benevolence in the instance of wars between humans
It seems to me that you (or perhaps Dick) have constructed a strawman deity whose choices are limited to those set for the deity by humans. Example: I come home and find my wife is cheating on me - in a rage, I decide to kill her. According to your theory:
1. My wife and the other party both have the freedom to choose the actions that led to this incident
2. I chose the circumstances that led to me coming home early
3. I chose, in a rage, to kill my wife
4. The deity, however, is bound to a singular course of action, predetermined by myself, my wife, and the other party.
This is a strawman. For one thing (as above) character doesn't imply obligation. For another, more fundamentally, free will in humans and in deities is/are not mutually exclusive.
Depends, Dick could be an expert philosopher who has supporting arguments for why any creator deity is likely to be benevolent. Most natural theologians will provide you with such arguments to back up their particular deity. You are judging his argument without knowing it in detail.
Yes, it could be that Dick has some hidden or secret teaching that has yet to be revealed. I can only judge his stance on what the OP has said, presumably in good faith that the argument was philosophically sound - we seem to agree that it is not.
Is Dick taking his cues from these 'natural theologians'? This seems like the same basic error as before.
It could be the case that he is making an error by conflating deities with benevolent deities,
This, I think, is the most likely scenario.
or it could be that he has an argument for why any deity would by definition be [benevolent] (if you want an example consider the Christian conception of ethics as being a reflection of gods nature, making god good by definition).
The Christian Deity is not benevolent, at least that is what Christians say. Perhaps Dick misunderstood 'benevolent' to mean 'good'.
"Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans?" - Doesn't need to. Just has to fail to do it once when it would be desirable for them to do so and possible for them to do so.
Is this your arguments or DIcks? If it is your argument, you might want to describe it in more detail. I see a few flaws with it. Firstly, I consider myself generous - to a point. I'm generally inclined to be generous, but don't feel the need to give to every cause. My generosity is my choice. Perhaps the benevolence of your theroetical deity works in the same way. Thus examples of (apparent) non-benevolence would not mean the deity is not, in general, benevolent.
Secondly there doesn't seem to be any obvious connection between our stupidity in fighting wars for no reason and this theoretical benevolence on the part of someone else.
You might argue he has put his line in the sand as to what constitutes too much suffering and evil in a poor place, but I don't suggest making that argument to veterans faces unless you yourself have watched comrades slowly bleed to death while you pick bits of shrapnel out your legs.
And yet I once met a man in the slums of Johannesburg who had no legs at all (mining accident). He had no problems in trusting his deity, despite his desperate circumstances. Perhaps what Dick thinks of as a disproof of all deities is merely a difference in the way that people react to bad circumstances.
Which doesn't help Dick at all, because for the fox hole dwellers to be acting rationally, their experience would need to disprove all deities, not just benevolent ones.
And even the disproof of the theoretical benevolent deity is a bit doubtful. Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans? Is this benevolence?
I usually phrase it more diplomatically, but often people assume atheism is some sort of conscious cop-out to avoid all the hard morality that supposedly stems from religion.
You might be mishearing what people are saying - which is that there is no distinction between atheism and other forms of belief.
Frankly if I thought the idea of a sky-fairy running a magical kingdom keeping us all immortal forever was even remotely plausible, I'd convert yesterday.
Convert to what? Who believes in a magical sky fairy?
Somebody should probably have mentioned to Dick that he was engaging in a fairly obvious logical fallacy - i.e. the fact that humans do stupid things is orthogonal to the question of whether or not there is a deity or deities.
You can argue that it is cheaper but you can save even more money by not having the program at all. We can build a lot of telescopes back on earth for the cost of a robotic space mission.
I could argue for that but I tend to avoid the use of strawmen. There's lot's of things that robots can discover that telescopes can't - and there's lot's of things robots can discover that humans can't by virtue of (a) The relative simplicity of robotic missions allowing mission goals to be bolder (b) The expendability of mission assets - e.g. we CAN drop a probe onto Titan and leave it there if we wish, which makes the design order of magnitude simpler (c) Robots don't need air and aren't overly concerned with weightlessness or radiation, and even extreme gravity is simply an engineering problem. This makes them suitable for places where these conditions are in play (i.e. all of space), where as humans are vulnerable to all these conditions, and will expire relatively quickly, thus leading to mission failure.
Somewhere there has to be a vision to motivate it all, otherwise it is all just a waste of money.
And would the Mars colony plan suddenly provide this motivation? When are you expecting people to get excited about it? Because, frankly, nobody seems very excited now. I imagine that any future effort in this direction will soon get very unexciting, once the initial fervour dies off. It took 3 days for Apollo 11 to reach the moon. There was certainly excitement whilst in transit and whilst they were there. But by the time Apollo 13 launched, that excitement was largely gone. That is less time than a single mission to Mars.
A robotic space mission is no substitute for a manned one when the vision is to move humanity to other planets.
Is that the vision? Who decided that this was our vision?
we are either going to get people off of this planet, or we are going to extinct ourselves.
We are going extinct anyway.
we need breakthru tech. we need terraforming and colonization of the worlds in our solar system and we need interstellar travel, even if it means having generational ships.
No we don't.
otherwise it seems to me that we will overpopulate, use up our resources, and cease to exist as a species eventually. sooner rather than later possibly.
If we are unable to manage our behaviours here, we will be unable to manage them somewhere else.
And yet, it's more friendly for humans than Mars. Why? Becuase the gravity is close to earths. A year or so on Mars, and travelling back to Earth will probably kill you. Spend any time in low g's and your bones degrade, and heart muscle too. Step up the gravity and they don't return to fitness, you just die.
Earth, with all it's culture, natural beauty, diversity and frankly, convenience
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Your comment is wrong on so many levels. I ride motorcycles in Arizona, and many of my friends often carry, some on their hip, some concealed. I also carry from time to time. In the many years of riding I've done, NO ONE has ever pulled his sidearm or threatened anyone.
Ah. So in fact, by observation, you've never been in a situation where having a gun would have been useful in resolving it, yet you maintain a fantasy that someday this situation will arise and (a) You will happen to be carrying on that day (b) You will happen to point your gun at someone less likely to shoot you then you them (c) It won't be a situation better resolved by compromise i.e giving a guy you wallet with 20 bucks in it.
You have the objective reasoning of a 10 year old and live in a fantasy world. Grow up.
Why do we carry a gun?? Not because the world is dangerous, but because individuals are.
YOU are the danger. You appear to have little or no critical reasoning facility, you jump at shadows.To make matters worse, you are armed. Let's say I walked in and found you with gun out , pointing at another person. I would assume that YOU were the danger. Are you ready to draw your gun and shoot someone? Then you pose a danger to civil society and the correct functioning of that society.
Oh please. Kill or be killed situations can arise when you're simply minding your own business at home. Ever seen violent home invasions in the news?
No. But then I don't live in Mogadishu. Do YOU live in Mogadishu?
Since it doesn't matter whether the gun is stolen from the body of the hapless and under prepared gun owner or stolen form the house of the hapless and under prepared gun owner general statistics about gun theft don't need to make that distinction - the figure is 1.4 million guns over 5 years: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fshbopc0510pr.cfm.
For one thing, if I ever have to use a gun quickly, it's in a circumstance where (God forbid) my life or the life of someone else is at risk. There is no room for error in that situation.
If you are in a situation where you are choosing between killing another person or being killed yourself then there is a high probability that you have already failed because you lack the situational awareness to not get into that circumstance in the first place. Killing another person isn't a success scenario.
I cannot conceive of a circumstance where I would be intimidated by the abundant presence of guns, while in the absence of belligerent people.
The presence of guns generally signals belligerence, except in very narrowly defined circumstances - e.g. at a shooting range, in a police station or military training facility.
As a general rule - if you are in a country with generally free emigration laws and people make a habit of carrying guns, then something is terribly amiss and you need to get out of there. Two possibilities:
1. The people carrying guns have drastically overestimated the danger, in which case, you need to move away - people with bad judgement and no ability to accurately assess personal risk pose a danger to those around them.
2. The people have accurately assessed the danger and so you are in danger as well, from whatever threat they are facing. You have no good basis for staying in such a place, unless you are a war correspondent or in the military. The sensible thing to do is to leave.
The presence of belligerent people on the other hand, may intimidate me without the presence of guns.
Logic error. Presumably, sufficient numbers of unfriendly people will intimidate you regardless - what you fail to mention is that if you walk into a facility where there are typically many guns - a nest of taliban fighters, a cartel stronghold and the like, then you are in objective danger anyway.
It's clear to me that guns are not what make a place dangerous.
The presence of guns indicate danger and the presence of guns will cause any conflict to escalate. The real world isn't like hollywood depictions of the American West.
And indeed, that current levels of biodiversity will be maintained - that global warming will not result in the loss of bio-diversity?
You have a model that discounts the 20% hit to global GDP evident in other published works?
Whereabouts might we find your model - I assume it's been published?
Hear much on the "hockey stick" theory recently?
Oddly no. Ever since it was confirmed that the climate behaves precisely as outlined by the fabled hockey stick, denialists whave been remarkably quiet about it
Why is that? You would think that reputation-wise, they would be better off to admit their mistake.
I wouldn't trust a climatologist to do anything other than waste money writing papers about how much humans suck.
Do you think that climatologists have a guy whose job it is to convince you to trust them? If so, you are delusional.
When you read stories about "elite" climatologists making statements along the lines of universities shouldn't be giving out degrees related to climate studies to anyone who does not already agree that global warming is happening, is bad and is caused by humans,
Well I for one don't think universities should be handing out science degrees to people to stupid too read and understand a graph. Drooling morons and people who live in denial about facts in order to protect an idealogical position don't actually qualify for a degree based on intelligence and the acceptance of objective measures.
Encouraging children to get into STEM Degrees.
Is there a reason we need more people to have these degrees? Then encourage them to take the degree for those reasons. It's not as if the science we already need to do and the engineering we already need to do is not a challenge.
The moon landing back in the 1960's but a large boom into these careers. Although a small portion of them will be working on the space missions. The interest in these things as a kid will make them far more interested in the topics.
And after the boom came a bust. One of the big negatives of the apollo mythos is the intertwining of space exploration with sending bags of meat into space. The role of the bags of meat, is, as you say, to give the venture a human face - it's soap opera and (accesible) human drama.
But maybe the science is worth doing for it's own sake. Maybe the BIG achievements of NASA - Cassini, Voyager, the hugely successful Mars rovers - maybe these are the things we should celebrate, because these are science for the sake of science. If we are not getting kids excited about actual science then we are doing it wrong. Science is exciting.
But to figure out how to get people to survive and thrive on the Moon and Mars (extremely harsh conditions, and little energy sources) will create technology that we can use here on earth. Hey that solar panel on the moon can keep a small city running with a half a month of darkness, means on earth we could at least get it to run half a small city. Plus it will need to be small and light to get there. Extracting Drinking water out of the brimy pools on mars, would help us get drinking water out of our oceans and deserts.
We already know why we need those technologies. And we already know how to live sustainably on earth. If we are not motivated by the needs of 7 billion people and all their descendants, if we are not motivated by the need to preserve the biodiversity of the earth, then the needs of 7 people in a tin can will not motivate us. Solar panels can already power a small city on earth - we just don't want to reach into our pockets and build. We already know how to extract drinkable water from non-potable sources - we just don't care enough about the people without water to do anything about their needs.
1. Did we choose to have this system in place?
2. What role in the common good and practical administration does it serve? Please be specific.
There is no need to be afraid of these people. Freedom hearted people have faced down much worse enemies than these. The only real opposition to overcome is the quislings who side with the big bully hoping to avoid getting hurt or inconvenienced. But chances are, if you've been to primary (elementary) school, you've been in this position before. You know the drill. Stand up to the bully, face him down together.
Be polite if you can, but recognise that social graces have their place, and if need be, you might need to be rude. Don't let quislings tell you "it's for the safety/the family/the children" without confronting them. Don't let quislings tell you "it's the fault of KODOS" they are just trying to make this a different discussion they can control.
We've all felt helpless for far too long. I say "we" I'm not an american, but every western country has seen this creeping up on them. I'm not stupid enough to imagine that the NSA doesn't keep data on me if that serves some commercial or political advantage for some client. So we stand with you. You aren't helpless. The pen is still mightier than the sword.
Right?
Define most as a percentage of the total radiation recieved. Do the same thing for "much smaller percentage", "very much light" "almost all" and "very little". Cite the paper you a retrieving these observations from.
This is physics 101, something you can learn in a second semester physics class, but no one here actually cares much about physics or knows much about it anyways so it's not worth my time. You just like to throw the word around whilst having no clue what it means or what physics is with a complete unwillingness to actually discuss the physics.
Answer the question.
So you accept a rather enormous leap in temperature (i.e 1.3K for doubling) but not the additional increase from positive feedback?
1. Which positive feedbacks are being overstated, and by what amount? What observations back your assertion that these are overstated - cite the paper in which these observations were published.
2. Which negative feedbacks are being ignored? Describe these negative feedbacks in detail and by reference to observations citing their true level of influence on the troposphere. Reference the paper in which your observations were published.
The physics doesn't really support this assertion.
It doesn't? Let's look at the numbers.
Naturally existing CO2 levels block out most of the infrared that would otherwise escape the atmosphere and any additionally added CO2 would only block out a much smaller percentage per each additional unit of CO2. It's like shining a light at two parallel walls, the second wall doesn't block very much light because the first wall blocks almost all of it. Likewise, naturally existing CO2 blocks almost all of the radiation that CO2 blocks and so what's left to exist the earth is very little.
Define most as a percentage of the total radiation recieved. Do the same thing for "much smaller percentage", "very much light" "almost all" and "very little". Cite the paper you a retrieving these observations from.
This is part of the reason why people are against global warming - when people mention reasons why they don't believe it, or ask real questions about it seeking clearer understanding, all we get is attacked, demeaned and insulted.
Did we hurt your feelings? That's a shame.
One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, but apparently in the case of global warming, this doesn't apply because its easier to just insult those who dont clearly understand or would like details.
Denialists aren't claiming to not understand the details. That's a stupid thing to say anyway - the basics of the science, (greenhouse gas theory, feedback mechanisms) are easy enough for a child to understand and those details can be found on wikipedia, which a child can navigate. Nobody has the job of bringing you up to speed. No, that is not what Monkton, Watts, Pielke and other high priests of denialism are saying. They say they have a better theory - a theory that can better explain what happened to the heat that should be in the troposphere, owing to the increased concentration of CO2 and other GHGs, whilst simultaneously explaining the coincident heat we see now is actually from another cause, and what that cause is.
They just can't tell us what this better theory actually says - I couldn't tell you why - selective mutism? Legal issues?
I know they have this theory because they say the science is wrong. The only way a sensible, truthful person could make that claim would be if they had a better theory. All that remains is for the proponents of that better theory to describe it to us.
And how are they falisfying the results of those experiments every time they are repeated, given that these days, the theory can be confirmed by someone with the equipment found in a high school? That must take some mighty sophisticated tech. Fantastic surveillance equipment with some kind of inbuilt pre-cognition? Or are they time travelling back to the scene of each experiment to cook the results and 'heal the wound' as they say?
Which makes me wonder, given the pathetic kind of money that these climate scientists make in their day jobs, why don't they use the time machine directly to make the big bucks? See that? I'm smarter then all them dumb scientists! They didn't think of that one!
Because all actions are equally trivial for a deity and they are the root cause of all actions there is no distinction between action and inaction.
Who says that that all actions are equally trivial to a deity?
A benevolent deity has virtually no choice in their actions because they can only pick from the set of maximally good actions (because the only way to make benevolence make sense in this context is as I suggested before making benevolence a property of the deities nature, and any violation of this nature is a grave indiscretion).
Once again, experience belies this. I can be generous without being obliged to be equally generous to everybody. If I'm willing to ascribe this property to myself in my context of limited freedom, why would a deity, with no apparent obligations, be obliged to step in and correct our every mistake?
And this still doesn't address the issue of what is benevolence in the instance of wars between humans
It seems to me that you (or perhaps Dick) have constructed a strawman deity whose choices are limited to those set for the deity by humans. Example: I come home and find my wife is cheating on me - in a rage, I decide to kill her. According to your theory:
1. My wife and the other party both have the freedom to choose the actions that led to this incident
2. I chose the circumstances that led to me coming home early
3. I chose, in a rage, to kill my wife
4. The deity, however, is bound to a singular course of action, predetermined by myself, my wife, and the other party.
This is a strawman. For one thing (as above) character doesn't imply obligation. For another, more fundamentally, free will in humans and in deities is/are not mutually exclusive.
Depends, Dick could be an expert philosopher who has supporting arguments for why any creator deity is likely to be benevolent. Most natural theologians will provide you with such arguments to back up their particular deity. You are judging his argument without knowing it in detail.
Yes, it could be that Dick has some hidden or secret teaching that has yet to be revealed. I can only judge his stance on what the OP has said, presumably in good faith that the argument was philosophically sound - we seem to agree that it is not.
Is Dick taking his cues from these 'natural theologians'? This seems like the same basic error as before.
It could be the case that he is making an error by conflating deities with benevolent deities,
This, I think, is the most likely scenario.
or it could be that he has an argument for why any deity would by definition be [benevolent] (if you want an example consider the Christian conception of ethics as being a reflection of gods nature, making god good by definition).
The Christian Deity is not benevolent, at least that is what Christians say. Perhaps Dick misunderstood 'benevolent' to mean 'good'.
"Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans?" - Doesn't need to. Just has to fail to do it once when it would be desirable for them to do so and possible for them to do so.
Is this your arguments or DIcks? If it is your argument, you might want to describe it in more detail. I see a few flaws with it. Firstly, I consider myself generous - to a point. I'm generally inclined to be generous, but don't feel the need to give to every cause. My generosity is my choice. Perhaps the benevolence of your theroetical deity works in the same way. Thus examples of (apparent) non-benevolence would not mean the deity is not, in general, benevolent.
Secondly there doesn't seem to be any obvious connection between our stupidity in fighting wars for no reason and this theoretical benevolence on the part of someone else.
You might argue he has put his line in the sand as to what constitutes too much suffering and evil in a poor place, but I don't suggest making that argument to veterans faces unless you yourself have watched comrades slowly bleed to death while you pick bits of shrapnel out your legs.
And yet I once met a man in the slums of Johannesburg who had no legs at all (mining accident). He had no problems in trusting his deity, despite his desperate circumstances. Perhaps what Dick thinks of as a disproof of all deities is merely a difference in the way that people react to bad circumstances.
And even the disproof of the theoretical benevolent deity is a bit doubtful. Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans? Is this benevolence?
I usually phrase it more diplomatically, but often people assume atheism is some sort of conscious cop-out to avoid all the hard morality that supposedly stems from religion.
You might be mishearing what people are saying - which is that there is no distinction between atheism and other forms of belief.
Frankly if I thought the idea of a sky-fairy running a magical kingdom keeping us all immortal forever was even remotely plausible, I'd convert yesterday.
Convert to what? Who believes in a magical sky fairy?
Somebody should probably have mentioned to Dick that he was engaging in a fairly obvious logical fallacy - i.e. the fact that humans do stupid things is orthogonal to the question of whether or not there is a deity or deities.
You can argue that it is cheaper but you can save even more money by not having the program at all. We can build a lot of telescopes back on earth for the cost of a robotic space mission.
I could argue for that but I tend to avoid the use of strawmen. There's lot's of things that robots can discover that telescopes can't - and there's lot's of things robots can discover that humans can't by virtue of (a) The relative simplicity of robotic missions allowing mission goals to be bolder (b) The expendability of mission assets - e.g. we CAN drop a probe onto Titan and leave it there if we wish, which makes the design order of magnitude simpler (c) Robots don't need air and aren't overly concerned with weightlessness or radiation, and even extreme gravity is simply an engineering problem. This makes them suitable for places where these conditions are in play (i.e. all of space), where as humans are vulnerable to all these conditions, and will expire relatively quickly, thus leading to mission failure.
Somewhere there has to be a vision to motivate it all, otherwise it is all just a waste of money.
And would the Mars colony plan suddenly provide this motivation? When are you expecting people to get excited about it? Because, frankly, nobody seems very excited now. I imagine that any future effort in this direction will soon get very unexciting, once the initial fervour dies off. It took 3 days for Apollo 11 to reach the moon. There was certainly excitement whilst in transit and whilst they were there. But by the time Apollo 13 launched, that excitement was largely gone. That is less time than a single mission to Mars.
A robotic space mission is no substitute for a manned one when the vision is to move humanity to other planets.
Is that the vision? Who decided that this was our vision?
we are either going to get people off of this planet, or we are going to extinct ourselves.
We are going extinct anyway.
we need breakthru tech. we need terraforming and colonization of the worlds in our solar system and we need interstellar travel, even if it means having generational ships.
No we don't.
otherwise it seems to me that we will overpopulate, use up our resources, and cease to exist as a species eventually. sooner rather than later possibly.
If we are unable to manage our behaviours here, we will be unable to manage them somewhere else.
and possibly Venus
Venus has a surface temperature of 462C.
And yet, it's more friendly for humans than Mars. Why? Becuase the gravity is close to earths. A year or so on Mars, and travelling back to Earth will probably kill you. Spend any time in low g's and your bones degrade, and heart muscle too. Step up the gravity and they don't return to fitness, you just die.
Earth, with all it's culture, natural beauty, diversity and frankly, convenience
Ever been to New Jersey?
Nope. Is that near New Zealand?